BPR 43 | 2016
The field not yet stubble, the rain not slanting
like the downpour in Hiroshige.
Were a duchess to cross the waving barley,
silk dress embroidered with minute flowers,
it would be no miracle to the cows,
whose last miracle came some centuries back.
There is always some hoped-for astonishment
even a Caesar could not order to appear.
The dawn comes and goes without uproar,
people pass their lives in relative comfort,
the mail gets delivered eventually
but never with some unexpected news
about a lottery, or a long-lost uncle
who has bequeathed you an island off Africa.
That would require the invention of God,
which would also be a miracle.